Cycling UK Forum

A 'Mini' these days has the same wheelbase as a Mk1 Range Rover or a Land Rover Discovery. It is also as wide as lots of other 'non-Mini' sized cars on the outside, without seeming that wide on the inside. Very odd indeed.

I have carried a racing tandem (with both wheels out, granted) myself, and the stoker, inside an original style mini saloon. It was a 'fairly tight fit'...

cheers

Fold the back seats down. The bike goes in "gear side up", front wheel first, push it in until the front wheel is behind the driver's seat, and the saddle resting on the left side of the back of the car. Go round to the driver's door, lean over the seat, grasp the front wheel and make it do a "full left turn" so the mudguard comes up and you drag the bike into the car. Then from the back of the car, push the back of the bike in so you can shut the back door....the bike will have to be diagonally across the car, with the saddle resting somewhere by the back window. The handlebars may fight with the front passenger seat, you can put the bars above the seat, or move/angle the seat forward.

Wow Colin - and that's without taking the front wheel off?

Can't wait for tomorrow to try it.

Your post made me smile on a Monday Morn grey rabbit.... cars to fit bikes in
I have spent years buying estates...... I now have a big van to carry bikes; wait until you have to go somewhere with the 3-4 or even 6 bikes somewhere.
We managed to get 2 (unmudguarded) bikes into a Twingo hire car in Majorca a couple of years ago Wait until the family get into cycling!

The problem with getting bikes into cars is not necessarily the over all width of the vehicle but the actuall width of the boot opening, a friend had a car with massive boot space and would have been great to take a bike; except you could not get one thru the boot opening due to fancy shaping and wheel arches!

As you say we used to jump on a bike and go.... now we agonise over decisions. You are best getting the best bike you can for the money and find a one that fits well.

I remember my first solo holiday, sitting on the train to Holyhead worrying about what might go wrong with the bike and how to cope, by then I had been on numerous club runs where we affected roadside repairs on poor quality 70's bikes/equipment..... so had knowledge of what could go wrong..
In that trip I met a couple of girls on ordinary bikes, whose parents had suggested cycling in Ireland would be a good idea of a holiday, they were having a ball but I doubt they knew how to repair a puncture between them... and clearly had no idea of what could go wrong; sometimes ignorance is bliss.

Yes Eileithyia I think there will be a problem with the bike going in the back because of the shaping between the boot and where the back seats are. I'm going to have to wait a bit to try though - I've not used the car for about 10 days and there's just a car shaped mound of snow outside. I am going to the bike shop too as soon as the weather improves to get them to show me how to take the wheels off and on and also how to mend a puncture - yeah, shock horrow I have never ever done one - at the moment I'd probably be crying at the side of the road if I got a puncture. I've been reading Anne Mustoe's "Bike Ride 12,000 miles around the world" - it's pretty boring - not really anything about the bike except she does say at some point how many hundreds of miles she'd done without a puncture. I have Schwalbe Marathons on and bought some green junk stuff so I've not been worried - I haven't got a helmet either despite flying over the handlebars once after braking going down a steep hill in the rain. I knocked myself out and woke up on someone's settee with a doctor in attendance - I said I was fine - I had a huge gouge out of my hip but wasn't going to show him as there was a teenage boy (from the house) in the room and I was embarrassed! - I was 16. Anyway I got back on and went home and never ever mentioned it to my parents. I think I will get a helmet though, if only to keep the rain off a bit.

lol I ride a bike, partly to enjoy the wind thru my hair; helmets well only if i have to....